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-=Joel=-

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Problem with that is there are now very very few songbirds here, and its very common to see 40-50 magpies. Personally i'd rather have the songbirds.

I hope the people who are saying its cruel to trap and kill them are vegans or something otherwise the word hypocrite springs to mind. What suffers more, a magpie with with a ringed neck or a cow/pig in an abatoir? I suspect its the pigs, they know were theyre going.

For goodness sake!

Magpies require prey to survive but it is a basic fact of population dynamics that predator numbers are dictated by the numbers of prey and not the other way around.

Magpies are currently doing well because the habitats they favour have been expanded by man. They have been proven repeatedly to have no effect on songbird numbers, just like Sparrowhawks (another frequent scapegoat).

Songbirds are declining at an alarming rate in the Uk due to unfavourable agricultural practices and unfriendly gardening trends (step forward gravelled decked gardens).

As for wringing a bird's neck, this is incredibly cruel unless done correctly. Animals die quickly and humanely in an abattoir and to serve a purpose (human food). Killing magpies (or foxes for that matter) serves no purpose other than to make people feel self righteous.

I take great joy in the local Magpies visiting our pond to gather mud for nest building each Spring. At the same time, we have lots of other birds nesting successfully from Blue Tits to Bullfinches.

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So animals suffering because we eat them is fair justification, and they should be glad because if we didn't eat them and kill them they wouldnt have existed anyway? Whereas controlling wild animals because they are flying vermin isn't justified because they allready exist and there arent enough of them anyway and its nice to have flying vermin instead of nicer birds. Did i follow the gist of it correctly?

Like i said I dont care one way or the other about controlling them, but dont argue that a domesticated animal is somehow inferior, thats just silly.

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So, you justify the indefensible on the grounds of your personal aesthetic standards.

It's apparent that you do "care one way or another" in spite of the denial.

Animal husbandry practices right or wrong have no bearing on this issue.

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Guest Sheila

Who decided Magpies are vermin? Many of our birds of prey were almost wiped out because of unjustified statements like that. Even today gamekeepers poison them because they take birds that the gamekeepers would rather have the pleasure of shooting themselves. Sparrowhawks are finally on the increase and that can only be because their food is also on the increase. They eat only small birds( and I would love to see them in my area,) whereas only 1 or 2 percent of a Magpies diet consists of the young of songbirds.

Here is a link to explain the effects of Magpies on our bird population.

http://www.essexwt.org.uk/Leaflets/magpies.htm

In general animals for the food trade are humanely killed. I agree steps could be taken to improve the methods of some abattoirs, but the fact remains that people need to eat. As I said before if you are prepared to eat the Magpies that you are happy to kill, then fine I have no argument with that, but if the only reason you kill them is because you believe they are vermin, then you are wrong and need to learn a bit more about our native birds. :shock:

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So animals suffering because we eat them is fair justification, and they should be glad because if we didn't eat them and kill them they wouldnt have existed anyway? Whereas controlling wild animals because they are flying vermin isn't justified because they allready exist and there arent enough of them anyway and its nice to have flying vermin instead of nicer birds. Did i follow the gist of it correctly?

Like i said I dont care one way or the other about controlling them, but dont argue that a domesticated animal is somehow inferior, thats just silly.

Call me silly then.

The fact remains, whatever else you may say about me, I'm pretty well-versed on animal welfare (as a vet) and birds (as a keen birder).

This thread was not about animal suffering. The subject of Magpies was introduced as a cause of songbird decline. That is NOT true. End of.

'Vermin' is a very emotive term. On what grounds do you call Magpies 'vermin'? I don't believe that Magpies are superior to songbirds. Read my post - my garden supports a healthy population of many species 'despite' the 'threat' the Magpies 'pose'. Note use of italics to confer irony.

It is very easy to point the finger, whether at Magpies, Sparrowhawks, Golden Eagles, foxes or any other predator. Predators are part of a natural ecosystem and do not cause decline of their prey. Whether your prejudices allow or not, this is a basic biological fact.

People worried about the decline of songbirds need to look closer to home. Is your garden planted for wildlife? Is there dense cover? Are there suitable concealed nesting sites? Or are your local birds forced to nest in highly-artificial exposed sites vulnerable to predation by (usually) cats giving you free rein to blame the Magpies.

Please! Get your facts straight. And don't bring half-baked arguments involving farming to cloud the fact that you don't have your own information sorted.

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:-)

I love threads like these.

:-)

I personally find Magpies horrible ( My psychosis, nothing sane, too long to explain ) but culling them makes no sense.

We are omnivores!! Anyone with half an iota of anatomical knowledge knows that, therefore we are best suited to consume meat as well as veg. As Jonathan said, animals killed in abattoirs die quickly and in very little pain. I've killed chickens for food and wringing ain't fun and it ain't quick.

Most 'vermin' that are trapped usually die in the traps often in great pain.... been there, seen that.

My garden is a mess! I don't tidy up the dead plants as soon as. I have piles of wood lying around waiting to be burnt. I allow some weeds to grow amongst the flowers, I'm lazy you see! :-)

I have Sparrows, Blackbirds, Great Tits, Blue Tits, Longtailed Tits (and the occassional lost Marsh Tit0, Finches of all kinds (sorry Jonathan my bird ID is poor), Thrushes, Starlings, Woodpigeon, Collared Doves and a pair of Dunnock visiting my patch. I also see a lot of Batterflies and Moths, I have a BumbleBee nest in the garden and Solitary Bees. I have few Aphids and can't remember the last Catterpillar infestation.

Balance that's the idea. I love to watch the Blue Tits nipping up and down the plant stems picking of insect eggs in the Autumn. The Blackbirds are pigging out on the Blackberries at the end of the garden and the Thrushes appreciate the odd snail or slug thrown on the shed roof.

Over garden your gardens and you lose at lot of wildlife.

:-)

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Magpies require prey to survive but it is a basic fact of population dynamics that predator numbers are dictated by the numbers of prey and not the other way around.

Magpie numbers are not controlled by the availability of prey animals because they are opportunistic feeders and will eat allmost anything. Particulalry in city and rurban areas.

Oh, and gatherings of 40-50 Magpies are uncommon to say the least. They are not flock birds. I've not seen more than 7 or 8 together in 30 years of birding.

If you want to see gatherings of 40+ magpies go to any park in Liverpool after its been raining.

whereas only 1 or 2 percent of a Magpies diet consists of the young of songbirds

Estimates of Magpie bird consumption vary between 3-38% by weight.

People are allowed to kill magpies for the express purpose of protecting other wild birds, the birds must be watered every day while they are in the trap, and must be humanly killed.

Given that i did not introduce the moral outrage into the discussion, in fact it was introduced by other poeple, I dont see anything wrong with pointing out a certain inconsitency.

Lastly, whatever a particular study has said, it quite obvious that introducing another source of predation into a dwindling population of songbirds is going to have an impact. Particulalry when the predator is not dependant on the prey for survival.

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People are allowed to kill magpies for the express purpose of protecting other wild birds, the birds must be watered every day while they are in the trap, and must be humanly killed.

Lastly, whatever a particular study has said, it quite obvious that introducing another source of predation into a dwindling population of songbirds is going to have an impact. Particulalry when the predator is not dependant on the prey for survival.

People are allowed to kill magpies for political reasons (ie alleged effects on gamebirds amongst others) rather than to protect songbirds.

I was not quoting one particular study. Repeated studies have shown that Magpies have a minimal effect on songbird numbers if any. Habitat deterioration, pesticide use and domestic cats all play a much bigger role as these have a major impact on both breeding success and on adult survival. Magpies take eggs and nestlings. Blue Tit nests contain up to 20 eggs and predation at this stage has little effect on the population: there are many surplus young.

The problem is, Magpies are an easy target to point fingers at. They are highly conspicuous and have increased in numbers for the reasons you've said: they are opportunists taking advantage of suburban easy pickings. Their impact on nesting birds does not alter numbers of those species to any significant effect.

Finally, things that are 'quite obvious' often are not. :)

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Hard to prove either way, im seriously skeptical of a lot of studies because they just don't consider all the long term equilibriums involved, a well considered mathematical model would give much better picture of the actual impact over a long period. Bit of a major job though, unfortunately.

Clearly an increase in predators, all other things being equal has to reduce the numbers of pray. For some birds on the verge locally e.g. thrushes, this may or may not push them over, but i doubt anybody really knows the whole story.

Anybody out there doing a PhD on mathemantical equilibrium modelling of bird populations or something like that?

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Animals die quickly and humanely in an abattoir and to serve a purpose (human food)

By the way, I'm vegetarian but to say death for a purpose is ok doesn't make sense to me. An organism isn't any less dead because it was killed for food. Being killed and eaten by a lion wouldn't be deemed ok by your parents!

Animals die quickly and humanely in an abattoir

Thats very naive. A lot of slaughtermen would do something else if they didn't get a kick out of ending lives. I don't know if you saw the BBC programme the other month, but a wheezing dying pig on the floor does not constitute a quick humane death to me.

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Clearly an increase in predators, all other things being equal has to reduce the numbers of pray.

That's the point though, of course. If a Blue Tit has a brood of 10 babies and a magpie takes a couple that doesn't mean fewer Blue Tits necessarily. The remainder will have greater food resources as a result and therefore a greater chance of survival.

If you ran the maths on all broods surviving, we would be wading through Blue Tits on the way to topping up the bird feeders within a few years! :D

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Thats very naive. A lot of slaughtermen would do something else if they didn't get a kick out of ending lives. I don't know if you saw the BBC programme the other month, but a wheezing dying pig on the floor does not constitute a quick humane death to me.

I would like to think that the majority of abbatoirs do kill the animals humanely. There will always be the odd ones that are the exception to the rule. The BBC go on these undercover investigations knowing before they go in what to expect to find there, they are working on hearsay. Then they try to make it look as though this is the norm and tar the whole industry with the same brush. If we took notice of the BBC we wouldn't eat anything. If it's not cruel it causes cancer.

I don't think killing Magpies can be compared to killing for food at all. The excuse of doing it for the benefit of songbirds just doesn't work .

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I agree Sheila on all counts. At college, we had to do work experience in an abattoir - the one I visited dealt with cattle and pigs. I never saw evidence of cruelty and animals are stunned prior to being killed.

It's not a pleasant environment to work in but I doubt everyone there got a kick out of ending lives.

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Clearly an increase in predators, all other things being equal has to reduce the numbers of pray.

That's the point though, of course. If a Blue Tit has a brood of 10 babies and a magpie takes a couple that doesn't mean fewer Blue Tits necessarily. The remainder will have greater food resources as a result and therefore a greater chance of survival.

If you ran the maths on all broods surviving, we would be wading through Blue Tits on the way to topping up the bird feeders within a few years! :D

Exactly...assuming the blue tit population is stable, then only 2 chicks will survive from each breeding pair each year. this means that 15-20 or so of their young will die each year. This is a 90%-ish mortality, so MOST young birds die in their first year. They all have to die of something. Predators only take some, most will die due to adverse weather or lack of food.

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Oh, and on trapping magpies(in larsen traps), no effect watsoever on local songbirds. only young magpies exploring for territories are caught, whereas the older breeding females are the ones that take chicks...so you are killing innocent birds!

The magpies that are killed become part of the magpie natural mortality of >90% or so from what is a fairly stable population...and most of these young magpies will die anyway in their first year, so it is a complete waste of time!

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The magpies that are killed become part of the magpie natural mortality of >90% or so from what is a fairly stable population...and most of these young magpies will die anyway in their first year, so it is a complete waste of time!

I believe you are right, there are so many around here now, trapping a few makes absolutely no difference. Years ago the older ones would have been shot, some still are but recently theres just too many to have an impact.

Exactly...assuming the blue tit population is stable, then only 2 chicks will survive from each breeding pair each year. this means that 15-20 or so of their young will die each year. This is a 90%-ish mortality, so MOST young birds die in their first year. They all have to die of something. Predators only take some, most will die due to adverse weather or lack of food.

Of course you are right, that is a pretty good textbook definition of an equilibrium. The point though is that with more predators the equlibrium position changes.

In fact for it to be a true equilibrium only two chicks have to reach breeding age during the average life span of a breeding pair of birds, so less than two per year, assuming a pair breed for more than a year.

The other angle on this is that its not a true equilibrium as the magpie population is more likely controlled by suitable nesting sites than food availability. Therefore a reduction in songbird pray does not reduce the magpies and no equilibrium exists, which can be very damaging.

Certainly thirty years ago, a magpie was a rare sight around here and now they are common place. Nests in ours and neighbours gardens have been raided and wiped out by magpies which wouldnt have happened thirty years ago. It is very difficult to believe that this extra predation has not impacted the local birds, particularly when we dont get the same numbers of certain birds in the garden anymore, (and yes I know its gets blamed on other factors also). I dont think mathematically the argument would stand close scrutiny that there could not have been an impact.

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A quote from the charity 'Song Bird Survival'

"New research recently published in the Journal of Applied Ecology showed that where there were no magpies present, the reproductive output of song thrushes was much greater. This was well illustrated by two maps, one showing the distribution of magpies in Britain, the second showing the breeding success of song thrushes, and they demonstrated perfectly that where magpies were absent song thrushes thrived. A report entitled 'Large-scale spatial variation in the breeding performance of song thrushes and blackbirds', written by biologists from the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and the University of East Anglia, concluded that nest failure rate during incubation increased significantly where Corvids were present, and that most predation was by the smaller Corvids, particularly magpies. The significance of this report is that it is very large and thorough, and backs up the work performed by other biologists on nest predation in urban parklands by magpies, which is having a considerable impact on the local blackbird population.

Science is now proving what the gamekeepers of past years knew, that magpie predation of nests and fledglings is having a considerable impact on the reproductive capacity of other birds, and that their numbers must be controlled if we are to succeed in increasing our songbird population."

The control of predators like the magpie has resulted in dramatic increases in the songbird population, especially song thrushes, which has been admirably demonstrated by the Game Conservancy at their site at Loddington. The magpie is just one of the many predators, whose numbers have increased dramatically over the past 30 years, which has coincided with the large population decline in our songbirds and they are currently keeping a lid on any sustainable recovery in songbird numbers."

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They're about to go out and shoot Cormorants too, on the basis that they impact a few peoples wallets!

Ever seen a Cormorant pick up and swallow a 5 pound Carp? Me neither, can't wait for evidence of that :-)

When do we go out and reduce the numbers of the greatest vermin of all? They cause more environmental destruction in a day they Magpies could do in a million years. They are more directly the cause of 'Song bird' decline than Cats and Magpies combined. Surely with all the harm that 'Super-Vermin' does we should have open season on them?

:evil:

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Song Bird Survival is hardly a neutral 'charity'. They have well-versed interests in predator control as a concept as they include many gamebird keepers etc. They are also calling for culling of Sparrowhawks and Peregrines too.

What did songbirds do 1000 years ago? 10000 yrs ago? Who controlled the Magpies then?

The correlation stated proves nothing. Magpies thrive in areas with open ground and these areas often have poor cover for nest placement for thrushes and other small birds. Our garden has breeding Magpies and a high nesting success of song birds.

As I say, Song Bird Survival wants Sparrowhawks shot as they have increased massively in recent years. This 'increase' is in fact a recovery to natural numbers following persecution and DDT in the 60s. Only in the last decade has most of lowland Britain started to regain a natural selection of top (avian) predators.

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